Qualcomm reaches $75 million settlement over sales and licensing practices

Qualcomm agreed to pay $75 million to bag to the backside of a lawsuit wherein shareholders accused the chipmaker of defrauding them by hiding its anticompetitive gross sales and licensing practices.

A preliminary all-money settlement turned into as soon as filed on Tuesday with the federal court docket in San Diego.

It requires approval by U.S. District Mediate Jinsook Ohta, who certified the lawsuit as a class motion in March 2023.

Qualcomm and 6 particular person defendants, along with primitive chief executives Paul Jacobs and Steven Mollenkopf, denied wrongdoing in agreeing to set up.

The San Diego-primarily primarily based company didn’t at as soon as reply to a request for commentary.

Shareholders accused Qualcomm of artificially inflating its portion trace between February 2012 and January 2017 by time and all every other time describing its chip gross sales and abilities licensing as separate businesses, when essentially Qualcomm bundled them to stifle competition.

In January 2017, the Federal Change Commission and Apple sued Qualcomm one after the other in reference to its alleged efforts to monopolize the marketplace for baseband processors, a form of chip weak in cellphones.

Apple stated Qualcomm weak its monopoly place to overcharge for chips, and uncover demanding and dear phrases for abilities licenses.

Qualcomm known as the claims baseless, nonetheless its portion trace fell 13 per cent on the considerable paunchy buying and selling day after Apple sued.

The case is In re Qualcomm Inc Securities Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of California, No. 17-00121.